We have not yet developed measures for all the facets discussed above, but the major
aspects have been measured in the following ways (Frese et al., 1997): First, the self-starting nature
of initiative at work was measured with questions on past initiative at work, for example, whether in
the last 2 years the respondent had looked into some work problem and suggested solutions. If the
answer was affirmative, the interviewer probed further to ascertain whether the reported action was
self-starting (i.e., not part of the respondent's job role or an assignment). Second, to overcome the
problems due to the retrospective nature of this measure, we also measured current initiative in an
area that is important to nearly every job: education initiative. Again, we checked whether it was
self-started or demanded by the company, and whether the respondent showed persistence in spite
of setbacks and a long-term focus. Third, to measure overcoming barriers, the interviewer presented
some problems and the respondent was asked to overcome them. For example, what would the
respondent do if a colleague continuously produced shoddy work that placed an additional
workload on the respondent. Whatever the respondent answered, the interviewer insisted that this
particular answer would not solve the problem (thereby posing an additional barrier), and asked for
additional ways of overcoming it. The number of barriers overcome was counted. Note that this